Thank you for these wonderful lectures, professor Wolff. Having previously only encountered Freud in a less-than-kind light, as a source of easy parody or subject of philosophical censure, these lectures were an interesting change of pace and helped me appreciate his significance. Rest assured your wisdom is evident in every word.
Of all the wise things that I've learned from you, mostly about politics, your last words to your father, which are not about politics, are certainly the wisest and maybe the wisest ever I've heard about what it means to be a good father.
Professor Wolff, I remember in your Rawls book, you had a criticism of Rawls's original position and veil of ignorance in that it totally ignored the works of Marx and Freud. What exactly do you think Freud theoretically offers us that renders Rawls's work suspect?
I've always abhorred rational choice theory based off my readings of Freud...Is that what you're getting at?
Freud is interesting stuff, but also I some somehow quite distracted, when you say that Sidney Morgenbesser was 'famous throughout the philosophical world', and it appears that this was for his wit, though he published little -- he rarely wrote anything. His caustic irreverence and razor-sharp tongue produced, well, not academic prestige. Also, I read that Morgenbesser became something of a legend at the time of the 1968 student uprising for being beaten up when he joined a human chain protesting the police. I locate some book reviews in 'Commentary' in the forties, and this scans as anti-Stalinist left, Although many or even most of the editors and writers had been socialists, Trotskyites, or Stalinists in the past. Furthermore, 'Commentary' went notoriously to the right and toward the Republican Party in the 1970s and 1980s.
Just reading about this a bit and connecting the dots, I learn for the first time that Cohen suffered from mental illness and committed suicide and in connection with this, in the late 1950s the magazine sagged. However, I think I was vaguely familiar already with how the magazine became a mainstay of the Washington liberal elite in the heyday of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Commentary has been referred to in several Woody Allen films. For me, this has been an opportunity to muse on what 'top American intellectuals' means -- one can think of those top American intellectuals who have been attracted by this magazine. I'm mentioned the politics, but I haven't got all of my dots...quite...connected...
OK, I do not usually say anything like this, but I have been reading Daniel Langlois' lengthy comments with increasing bewilderment, and I have to say that they seem to me to be incoherent. I am not going to comment on them seriatim, but I felt I had to say something about this response to my recollections of Sidney Morgenbesser. And yes, Sidney was beaten by the Tactical Police Force in '68.
Thank you for these wonderful lectures, professor Wolff. Having previously only encountered Freud in a less-than-kind light, as a source of easy parody or subject of philosophical censure, these lectures were an interesting change of pace and helped me appreciate his significance. Rest assured your wisdom is evident in every word.
ReplyDeleteThank you! I am delighted they helped.
ReplyDeleteOf all the wise things that I've learned from you, mostly about politics, your last words to your father, which are not about politics, are certainly the wisest and maybe the wisest ever I've heard about what it means to be a good father.
ReplyDeleteThank you very much.
Just masterful in so many ways:
ReplyDeleteYour lectures are so well organized, intense intellectual rigor mixed with humor and storytelling.
They flow effortlessly and are engaging throughout.
In this lecture, I enjoyed the part about the use of drugs in therapy and how, regardless of their effectiveness,
deny the patient of self-knowledge.
You ending comments about your father reveal just how developed and secure you have become. Rare indeed. Something
I envy.
A question: can you say something about the audience. How many people came? Were they regular attendees? Elderly?
Professor Wolff,
ReplyDeleteI remember in your Rawls book, you had a criticism of Rawls's original position and veil of ignorance in that it totally ignored the works of Marx and Freud. What exactly do you think Freud theoretically offers us that renders Rawls's work suspect?
I've always abhorred rational choice theory based off my readings of Freud...Is that what you're getting at?
Freud is interesting stuff, but also I some somehow quite distracted, when you say that Sidney Morgenbesser was 'famous throughout the philosophical world', and it appears that this was for his wit, though he published little -- he rarely wrote anything. His caustic irreverence and razor-sharp tongue produced, well, not academic prestige. Also, I read that Morgenbesser became something of a legend at the time of the 1968 student uprising for being beaten up when he joined a human chain protesting the police. I locate some book reviews in 'Commentary' in the forties, and this scans as anti-Stalinist left, Although many or even most of the editors and writers had been socialists, Trotskyites, or Stalinists in the past. Furthermore, 'Commentary' went notoriously to the right and toward the Republican Party in the 1970s and 1980s.
ReplyDeleteJust reading about this a bit and connecting the dots, I learn for the first time that Cohen suffered from mental illness and committed suicide and in connection with this, in the late 1950s the magazine sagged. However, I think I was vaguely familiar already with how the magazine became a mainstay of the Washington liberal elite in the heyday of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Commentary has been referred to in several Woody Allen films. For me, this has been an opportunity to muse on what 'top American intellectuals' means -- one can think of those top American intellectuals who have been attracted by this magazine. I'm mentioned the politics, but I haven't got all of my dots...quite...connected...
OK, I do not usually say anything like this, but I have been reading Daniel Langlois' lengthy comments with increasing bewilderment, and I have to say that they seem to me to be incoherent. I am not going to comment on them seriatim, but I felt I had to say something about this response to my recollections of Sidney Morgenbesser. And yes, Sidney was beaten by the Tactical Police Force in '68.
ReplyDelete